Tuesday, 28 April 2009

So how did it go? The first day back in the 'Den'. - Well to be honest, it went OK. I came out with a loss and two reminders and a 7/10 Discipline score.

P/L for the day was - £16.04 with the last 6 races yielding a loss of £58.99, so I was doing reasonably well for the first couple of hours.

The reminders?

No.1 - The Clock - Just to ease myself in I tried a few greyhound races and got caught with a trade still in which resulted in a loss of £15. I did try and prevent this happening by listening to WH radio whilst trading but the suspension came before WH radio announced that they were all in the traps or that they were about to go off, so if I ever trade the dogs again, I'll use the real clock to determine when to close everything off.

No.2 - Multiple Books in the bookmaking option can be very expensive in the event of a late withdrawal. - This was annoying as I have fell fowl of this before, and I had this down as a point to beware of, but I'd forgot about it, and with 3 x £300 books on a handicap race already in and many horses already in the stalls, what happens?, well with seconds to go?, the 2nd fav is pulled out - Result - A loss of £18.49 on the race. Bum! (it was a little stronger than that yesterday)

7/10 Discipline? - Well, this was to do with the point above, where I was a little peeved at the loss due to the withdrawal. The race I traded was a competitive handicap and so I again did the 3 x £300 books, but this time with the 2nd fav drifting like a barge I continued to open fresh books - which is deadly, and so I paid the price with a £28.04 loss. Silly loss. Discipline Loss. I spotted the drift and should have closed the book and switched to a swing trade. Anyway, net net, only two races traded using the bookmaking tools and £46.53 loss, but lessons learnt, and that's a positive. So, onwards and upwards Ostlers, and at the end of the week, I'm hoping that I'll be able to post a green.

Saturday, 25 April 2009

Well, the contemplating and planning is over and now it is time to step once again into the Lions Den. The PC is set up, as is the laptop, one with my ISP and the other via mobile broadband. The Betfair and Betdaq accounts are open and funded, the brain is hopefully in gear and the time is now.

Friday, 17 April 2009

Due to some other work pressures, I have had to postpone my start up (or should that be re-start up) by one week. The reason for the delay, is that today is the day that I finished my 'regular' employment (one week later than planned), and so rather than dive straight in on Monday, I'm going to take a week out to clear the clutter that is in my head at the moment, get my dongle sorted out so that I can have my laptop on a mobile broadband package in case my desktop Internet connection goes down, and to plaster the wall of the ''prepared office'' with A4 notes reminding me of the what I consider to be the biggest two hurdles that I am going to face. Discipline and Emotion.

I have touched on the discipline before, and no doubt It will be the subject of many more posts on this blog, but what is also fundamental to my potential success is emotion and the control of it.I'd consider myself to be quite a deep person, who keeps his emotions in check, but my trading sessions last year had them flooding out. Highs, Lows, Despair, Anger, Frustration, Elation, they were all there, and so it is important that they stay bottled this time. Why? Well I found that with all these emotions flying about, the trading became quite, (quite)? OK, very stressful and I believe that in order to be successful at this game, you need to stay, as some successful traders out there refer to, as 'in the zone' - controlled, almost robot like, free of the shackles of the raging torrent that can quickly absorb you if let the emotions run riot.

Friday, 10 April 2009

It's both interesting and comforting to know that as you approach the struggle ahead that others already in the den are struggling to overcome the demons that are associated with trading on the betting exchanges.

They make a trade that goes against them, and then close their position for a loss, only to see the trend reverse and start to move the way they thought it would move. Damn - if only they had stayed with that trade! Then in the very next trade, they unfortunately enter on the wrong side again, and it starts to go against them again, only this time, they hold, no way will they make the same mistake twice. But this time, the trend holds, and goes further and further away from them, and now they are already 8-10 ticks to the bad.

Emotion takes hold. Why them? Why has it gone against them again? They then decide not to take the loss and to let this one go in play, to let it ride, surely fate wont be cruel and let this one now massive liability win. Surely it wont win? It wont will it?, It will, They know it will! But still they let it run and yes it wins, and now in the space of 5 mins, their mood changes dramatically, they are cursed, it's happened again, why oh why does it always happen to them? What harm did they ever do to anybody?

The computer screen clears as the race is settled, and then the depression sets in, a deep hurt, a real deep hurt, and one that holds for the rest of the day.

So why do I find this comforting? Do I revel in other traders pain? Do I enjoy seeing other traders fail? - No. I find it comforting because I remember the pain vividly from last time, and that what happened to me happens to many other traders at different times in their trading life, and they, like me have to learn to not emotionally react to a number of trades going bad.

About Me

I first ventured in to full time trading in July last year but due to some horrendous mistakes; my bank was obliterated in just over two weeks. I left a wounded man, but now 9 months later, with the scars fading, I am daring to venture back for one more fight in the world of exchange trading that I affectionately refer to as ‘'The Lions Den'’